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Michael F. Oppenheimer is a clinical professor of Global Affairs at the NYU School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs and author of Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN)The Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq spotlighted four ingredients sufficient to produce a historic strategic blunder: an ill-informed and inexperienced President; advisors with single-minded agendas; a broken policy process; and a major external shock. The Trump Administration is well on its way towards supplying three of these, and the fourth -- a shock -- is inevitable, although its precise character has yet to reveal itself.

Michael F. Oppenheimer

Observers should stop looking for a Trump grand strategy, or speculating about the President-elect's policies towards particular countries or issues. Whatever attitudes he expresses about policy are skin deep, an incoherent, impulse-driven miscellany of ethno-nationalism, isolationism, and an infatuation with authoritarian rulers who he views as partners in deal making.

Absent any workable strategic concept, the style will be transactional, similar to Obama's but without the current President's informed pragmatism and instinctive caution. Relations with our major adversaries will be governed by Trump's inflated estimates of his prowess as deal-maker, then by humiliation and a dangerous sense of betrayal when partners fail to deliver.

Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Martin Luther King III after they met at Trump Tower in New York on Monday, January 16. Afterward, King said the meeting was "constructive" and that the two discussed the importance of voting accessibility. Trump didn't speak to the media about the meeting.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump speaks at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday, January 11. In his first news conference since winning the election, a combative Trump made clear he will not mute his style when he is inaugurated on January 20. He lashed out at media and political foes alike.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

US Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump's nominee for attorney general, is sworn in during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday, January 10. Trump and his transition team are in the process of filling high-level positions for the new administration.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, arrives on Capitol Hill for a meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan on Monday, January 9. Kushner, a 35-year-old businessman-turned-political strategist, will be senior adviser to the president, a senior transition official told CNN.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump gets on an elevator after speaking with reporters at New York's Trump Tower on January 9.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump stands with Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma, Asia's richest man, as they walk to speak with reporters at Trump Tower on January 9. Ma met with Trump to tease plans for creating "one million" jobs in the United States. Trump praised Ma after the meeting as a "great, great entrepreneur and one of the best in the world."

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump stands with legendary boxing promoter Don King after meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Wednesday, December 28. Trump and King met to discuss the relationship between Israel and the United States.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump attends a meeting with Steve Bannon, chief White House strategist and senior counselor, at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Wednesday, December 21. Trump spent the holidays in Mar-a-Lago.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway talks to the press in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York on Thursday, December 15. Conway, who was Trump's campaign manager, will work in his administration as "counselor to the president," it was announced on Thursday, December 22.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump meets with technology executives in New York on Wednesday, December 14. From left are Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of Amazon; Larry Page, chief executive officer of Google's parent company Alphabet; Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook; and Vice President-elect Mike Pence. The three main areas discussed were jobs, immigration and China, according to a source briefed on the meeting.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Three of Trump's children -- from left, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric -- attend the meeting with tech leaders on December 14.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump, Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan wave during an event in West Allis, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, December 13. "He's like a fine wine," Trump said of Ryan at the rally, which was part of his "thank you" tour to states that helped him win the election. "Every day that goes by, I get to appreciate his genius more and more."

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump and rapper Kanye West speak to the press after meeting at Trump Tower in New York on December 13. Trump called West a "good man" and told journalists that they have been "friends for a long time." West later tweeted that he met with Trump to discuss "multicultural issues."

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump selected former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, right, to be his nominee for energy secretary, which would make Perry the head of an agency he once suggested he would eliminate.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump has tapped ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to serve as secretary of state, the transition team announced December 13. Tillerson, seen here at a conference in 2015, has no formal foreign-policy experience, but he has built close relationships with many world leaders by closing massive deals across Eurasia and the Middle East on behalf of the world's largest energy company.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump waves during the Army-Navy football game, which was played in Baltimore on Saturday, December 10.

Trump shakes hands with Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad at an event in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday, December 8. Trump re-introduced Branstad as his pick for US ambassador to China.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump greets retired Marine Gen. James Mattis at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Tuesday, December 6. Trump said he would nominate Mattis as his defense secretary.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump speaks to members of the media at Trump Tower in New York on December 6.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump visits the Carrier air-conditioning company in Indianapolis on Thursday, December 1. Carrier announced that it had reached a deal with Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is currently governor of Indiana, to keep about 1,000 of 1,400 jobs at its Indianapolis plant rather than move them to Mexico. The Carrier plant had been a theme of Trump's campaign promise to prevent more jobs from being outsourced to other countries.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney share a meal in New York on Tuesday, November 29. Romney was reportedly in the running for secretary of state.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump waves to a crowd at The New York Times building after meeting with some of the newspaper's reporters, editors and columnists on Tuesday, November 22. Six takeaways from the meeting

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Trump is flanked by Pence and Romney after a meeting in Bedminster Township, New Jersey, on Saturday, November 19.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

"60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl interviews Trump and his family at his New York home on Friday, November 11. It was Trump's first television interview since the election.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

House Speaker Paul Ryan shows Trump and his wife, Melania, the Speaker's Balcony at the US Capitol on Thursday, November 10.

Trump walks with his wife and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after a meeting at the US Capitol on November 10.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump shakes hands with President Barack Obama following a meeting in the Oval Office on November 10. Obama told his successor that he wanted him to succeed and would do everything he could to ensure a smooth transition.

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Photos:In transition: President-elect Trump

Trump delivers his acceptance speech during his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel on Wednesday, November 9.

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Indeed, the potential leverage we have gained over Russian behavior via Ukraine-related economic sanctions is already dissipating as Trump's vocal opposition to sanctions and his eagerness to do a deal was reinforced this week by the arrival of Trump's advance team of surrogates in Moscow.

While Trump has endorsed some realist ideas, by questioning the cost/benefit of our alliance system, and the advisability of nation-building, Bush as candidate endorsed similar views but with little conviction, then reversed course in reaction to 9/11. We can expect the same from Trump, whose impulsive temperament, on full display during the campaign and in his ongoing Twitter war with critics, and now with his own intelligence agencies, will shape actions more powerfully than his "ideas."

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Although wise advisors and effective process can compensate for the President-elect's weaknesses, those selected or nominated thus far will mostly reinforce them.

Michael Flynn, the choice for national security advisor, shares Trump's thin skin and inventiveness with facts, as well as a single-minded focus on Islamic extremism that will quickly produce policy errors as the administration confronts complex challenges and policy tradeoffs.

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Michael Flynn in 60 seconds

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Who is Trump's pick for CIA director?

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The job of national security advisor requires an even-handed commitment to conveying the highest quality policy analysis to the President, an honest assessment of policy options and trade-offs, wire-brushing of intelligence to provide the President with the best information available, and effective management of policy debates to encourage argument even on behalf of unpopular positions. Flynn's preoccupation with Islamic extremism, his intolerance of dissent, and his managerial ineptitude, demonstrated while running the Defense Intelligence Agency, make him uniquely unsuited to head the National Security Council.

Kansas congressman Mike Pompeo for the CIA director post is a further blow to informed strategic decisions. Pompeo is a highly partisan member of the Tea Party with an inflated view of the threat of Islamic extremism, and no record of accomplishment in the field of intelligence, or in management.

He takes over a job already deeply compromised by his new boss's public dismissal of the CIA's performance on Russian interference in the Presidential election, and by the President-elect's disinterest in receiving intelligence briefings.

The CIA job requires an understanding of policy-relevant intelligence needs, combined with sufficient detachment to provide the best information and analysis possible, whatever the implications for the president's agenda. It requires a full acknowledgement of uncertainty surrounding key decisions. It also requires that the President be informed of developments off stage that pose new challenges outside the frame of current priorities.

The combination of Flynn as information gatekeeper and advisor to the President, Pompeo as principle originator of intelligence, and Trump as disinterested intelligence consumer, is a guarantee of major intelligence and policy failure in a Trump Administration.

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James Mattis as Secretary of Defense may mitigate the damage, but Flynn will leverage his proximity to the President for the last word, which, given Trump's lack of discipline and knowledge, will usually be decisive.

The same can be said of Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, an accomplished CEO but a diplomatic and foreign policy novice with close business ties to a major U.S. adversary. The prospect of an entire foreign policy team with political and commercial driven sympathies to Russia, even as Russian hacking into the election escalates in importance, guarantees a rough confirmation for all nominees and a foreign policy already delegitimized.

Jeffrey Sessions as Attorney General, and Stephen Bannon — former head of Breitbart News, the hard-right website — as chief White House political strategist, further erode confidence in the administration's future foreign policy.

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Rex Tillerson in 60 seconds

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The AG nominee's hard line on treatment of undocumented immigrants and border enforcement will inevitably embroil the country in disputes with Mexico, and with European allies expecting to share the burden of refugees from conflict zones.

Bannon's proximity to the President will make him a major influence on foreign policy, despite his absence from the formal policy process, and his right wing extremism coupled with a volatile temperament will make him a disruptive influence in an administration desperately in need of orderly process.

Relations with European governments will be at great risk, as their increasingly powerful neo-fascist political opponents derive added confidence from the knowledge that a champion of global right-wing populism sits just down the hall from the Oval Office, while the President does deals with Putin, their principle external adversary.

It is impossible to imagine this particular group forming an effective policy process.

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The chaos of the President-elect's transition and the marginal quality of most of his appointments reveal Trump himself as the problem. His impulsivity, lack of knowledge, many prejudices and conflicts of interest augur badly for the future of America's global leadership and ultimately, for our safety.

The consequences of these pathologies may not fully reveal themselves immediately, but will burst into full view when something goes wrong, and something will surely go wrong. Some of these future crises will be self-inflected, as the global uncertainty generated by the shaky hand in the White House will force both allies and adversaries into worst-case assumptions or risky behavior, and CIA early warnings go unheeded.

But beyond the self-inflicted, no President can expect to avoid unpleasant surprises: for example, Soviet missiles in Cuba; Berlin blockades; Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; 9/11; the 2008 financial meltdown; the Arab Spring and the sudden rise of ISIS.

Administrations are often defined by their reaction to unanticipated challenges, and a combination of presidential calmness, the wisdom of advisors, good policy process and at least a working sense of strategy are essential requirements of effective crisis management.

These qualities are in short supply in the emerging Trump Administration. When called upon to deal with the inevitable shocks that await, their failure could be truly catastrophic.

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It's clear that that mitigating the damage to U.S. interests will not come from within the administration. It may learn from its inevitable mistakes (as JFK did from the Bay of Pigs fiasco), but this does not have the look of an administration intent on learning. The beginning of wisdom for the rest of us -- in Congress, journalism, academia, civil society -- is to acknowledge the new and manifold risks we now face from a chaotic, unpredictable and highly personalized Presidency, operating in a dangerous, complex and fast-moving world.

We'll need to be systematic about identifying and anticipating the sources of heightened risk: major strategic surprises resulting from an excessive focus on Islamic terrorism and an already broken intelligence-policy process; unanticipated, unintended blowback from errant policies (for example, China's reaction to abandonment of the One China policy); American allies reacting to new uncertainty surrounding our commitment to their security, by renationalizing their defense (Japan? Germany?) and setting off regional arms races; adversaries taking excessive risk, encouraged by uncertainty about our red lines; Trump himself reacting out of pique to the discovery he's been had by an erstwhile partner; and of course defending the country from violent extremism -- from whatever source -- without making the problem worse.

We need to be honest about the greatly heightened risk to the country already created by the President-elect in dismissing (indeed, during the campaign, inviting) Russian interference in the 2016 election. The Russians would, at this point, be entirely justified in concluding that an attack on our core Democratic institutions is risk-free, so long as the political result favors the President. The Russians will need to be disabused of that idea.

The challenge to the intelligence community cannot be exaggerated. Maintaining its professionalism, its detachment from the administration's policy preferences, its candor in delivering bad news, while building and maintaining its credibility with the President, may turn out to be impossible.

If that's the case, Trump, to quote President Obama, will be "flying blind." And we'll all be along for the ride.